Image description: Weather forecasters say the storms moving through the Midwest could produce derechos. What are they?
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center:
A derecho is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms. Although a derecho can produce destruction similar to that of tornadoes, the damage typically is directed in one direction along a relatively straight swath. As a result, the term “straight-line wind damage” sometimes is used to describe derecho damage.
Learn more about derechos.
This photo shows the shelf cloud that preceded a derecho in LaPorte, Indiana in June 2012. Photo courtesy of Kevin Gould / NOAA.
Image description: At Brookhaven National Laboratory, scientists have developed a custom-built machine that can grow special lenses, one atomic layer at a time. The machine is as long as an entire room, and scientists use a reprogrammed Xbox controller to direct a transport car through the vacuum-sealed chamber (pictured). The transport car collects plasma-borne particles that form the lenses that will eventually be used to focus high-intensity x-ray beams to reveal the details of nano material structures. Learn more about the deposition chamber.
Photo from Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Image description: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) “Robbie the Robot” playing a game without human direction. See more examples of how DARPA’s Autonomous Robotic Manipulation (ARM) program is developing software to perform human-level tasks quickly and with minimal direction in this video on YouTube.
Image description: Scientist Dmitry Polyansky examines a vial containing a specialized catalyst designed to help convert solar energy into fuel. Producing clean-burning hydrogen fuel from just sunlight and water requires custom-built catalysts for water oxidation — the part of the water-splitting process that generates oxygen atoms. A tiny amount of the solid catalyst, developed in collaboration with the University of Houston, dissolves and turns the water that lovely shade of blue.
Photo from Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Image description: Do you know there are some places so cold on Earth where water is frozen solid? This includes frozen parts of the ocean, such as waters surrounding Antarctica and the Arctic composing part of the cryosphere. The cryosphere is the part of the Earth’s surface that is frozen for some part of the year. Learn more about the cryosphere.
Photo from the National Oceanic and Atmosphereic Administration’s Satellite and Information Service
 and the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center:
A derecho is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms. Although a derecho can produce destruction similar to that of tornadoes, the damage typically is directed in one direction along a relatively straight swath. As a result, the term “straight-line wind damage” sometimes is used to describe derecho damage.
Learn more about derechos.
This photo shows the shelf cloud that preceded a derecho in LaPorte, Indiana in June 2012. Photo courtesy of Kevin Gould / NOAA.)
. The transport car collects plasma-borne particles that form the lenses that will eventually be used to focus high-intensity x-ray beams to reveal the details of nano material structures. Learn more about the deposition chamber.
Photo from Brookhaven National Laboratory.){kind=spacer}
 “Robbie the Robot” playing a game without human direction. See more examples of how DARPA’s Autonomous Robotic Manipulation (ARM) program is developing software to perform human-level tasks quickly and with minimal direction in this video on YouTube.)
